Express-News top 10 local sports stories

Updated 5:57 pm, Saturday, December 29, 2012

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, San Antonio Express-News

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Offensive Player of the Year

Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M: It’s hard to argue with picking the Heisman Trophy winner, who turned supposedly stout Southeastern Conference defenses into his own personal playgrounds all season en route to a season for the ages.

Express-News staff writer Richard Oliver provides a recap of the top 10:

1. Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel wins the Heisman Trophy en route to leading the Aggies to a 10-2 inaugural regular season in the SEC.

Conventional wisdom dictated that the Aggies would struggle in their first season in the celebrated Southeastern Conference. Then, along came an unconventional quarterback. Kerrville Tivy's Johnny Manziel, named the starter in August, showcased the electric skills that those in the San Antonio area had seen years before, piling up an SEC-record 4,600 yards of total offense en route to becoming the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy. With “Johnny Football” at the helm for first-year coach Kevin Sumlin's team, A&M won five straight to close the regular season, including a 29-24 upset of then-top-ranked Alabama on Nov. 10 in Tuscaloosa. The Aggies revisit Big 12 competition when they take on Oklahoma on Friday at the Cotton Bowl in Arlington.

When the Spurs arrived in Oklahoma City for Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, they were riding a 20-game winning streak and were only two victories from sealing that series. Naturally, most in San Antonio were anticipating a fifth River Walk parade celebrating an NBA title. The Thunder, led by Texas-ex Kevin Durant, had other ideas, reeling off four straight wins to eliminate the Spurs. In doing so, Oklahoma City became only the eighth NBA team to come back and win a best-of-7 series in four straight after trailing 2-0. It was “almost like a Hollywood script for OKC in a sense,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said afterward.

San Antonio, no stranger to notable Olympic performances in the past, sent almost a dozen athletes with ties to the city to the Summer Games in London. Four returned with medals. No one made a bigger impression than Destinee Hooker, the volleyball star who led the U.S. women's team in kills and points en route to capturing the silver medal. It was also a silver-medal showing for former Churchill swimmer Jimmy Feigen, a past All-American at Texas who led off the preliminary leg of the American 400-meter freestyle relay. In the women's team epee fencing competition, Courtney Hurley scored the clinching point as the U.S. squad, including sister Kelley, earned a bronze.

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4. Spurs fined $250,000 for sending four players home to San Antonio before a showdown with the Miami Heat.

Gregg Popovich had done it before, sitting down his stars at the tail end of rugged regular-season stretches of the schedule. But in late November, with his team grinding through another taxing road trip, the Spurs coach took it one step further by sending key players Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Danny Green home to San Antonio before the club took on Miami, the reigning NBA champion. NBA commissioner David Stern “concluded that the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans” for the move in an “early season game,” and fined the franchise $250,000. Stern's decision sparked an immediate outcry from pundits and NBA coaches and players, but the Spurs did not challenge the ruling.

5. UTSA makes its debut in the Football Bowl Subdivision with an 8-4 record.

In its second season in the Division I ranks in football, UTSA offered a stunning next step in its evolution as a program by posting an 8-4 record, beginning the season with five consecutive wins. Coach Larry Coker's Roadrunners followed with four straight losses, including lopsided setbacks to established programs Rice and Louisiana Tech, before rebounding with three victories in a row. The campaign was sandwiched by a notable 33-31 triumph at South Alabama to start the schedule and a 38-31 defeat of rival Texas State to end it last month. While the Roadrunners were not bowl eligible in 2012, they will be in 2013 when they make the move from the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA.

6. Tony Parker suffers an eye injury while a bystander during a nightclub brawl in New York City.

Spurs guard Tony Parker was at W.i.P., a New York City nightclub, in June when a brawl broke out between the entourages of singer Chris Brown and rapper Drake. Parker, who said later he was visiting the establishment with his friend Brown, suffered a corneal laceration of his left eye and other injuries when shards of glass struck him from a broken bottle. The injury, which required the star to wear special contact lenses and protective goggles for a while, did not keep him out of Olympic action or the start of the NBA season. Parker later filed a $20 million lawsuit against the club for failing to provide sufficient security despite the contentious entourages being on hand at the same time.

7. UIW moves to Division I in all sports, including football, and accepts an invitation to the Southland Conference.

In a stunning ascension on the athletic landscape, Incarnate Word announced in August that it had accepted a membership offer from the Southland Conference and would begin the process of transitioning to NCAA Division I competition. The four-year progression, which will see the Cardinals participate in all of the SLC's 17 sponsored athletic championships, will culminate with fully eligible Football Championship Subdivision status in 2017-18. As a result, San Antonio, two years after having no collegiate Division I football programs, will soon have two.

8. San Antonio's new professional league teams, the Scorpions and Talons, debut to great success.

Not only did the city add to its sports stable, with franchises debuting in the North American Soccer League and Arena Football League, but both finished as regular-season champions. The Scorpions, owned by businessman Gordon Hartman, reached the NASL semifinals in October before losing to Minnesota. The Talons, led by record-setting AFL quarterback Aaron Garcia, earned the top seed in the Western Conference before being upset by Utah 35-34 at the Alamodome in the first round of the postseason in late July. Neither franchise shows signs of slowing down, with the Scorpions well under way in construction of a soccer-specific stadium and Talons owner David Lynd expanding his front-office staff and roster.

9. Northside heads to the quarterfinals and area teams take home state gold.

Brandeis, O'Connor and Brennan are separated by about 10 miles on Loop 1604. As the three schools made football playoff runs in November and December they found themselves cheering on their neighborhood rivals. Brennan reached the Class 4A Division II state quarterfinals with a 13-1 season. Brandeis finished 12-2, reaching the Class 5A Division II state quarterfinals. And O'Connor had its best season in school history, going 12-3 with a trip to the 5A Division I state semifinals. When the three schools were in the state quarterfinals together, Northside ISD, the city's largest school district with about 100,000 total students, held a joint pep rally with about 6,000 fans going to Farris Stadium to cheer for each other. The three Northside schools weren't alone among successful high school programs in the area. Alamo Heights won the Class 4A state boys soccer title in the program's 25th anniversary of its first crown in 1987. Three perennial powers — New Braunfels' team tennis squad, Boerne Champion's boys cross country team and Randolph's girls track team — also won state titles.

While the Spurs remain the unquestioned cornerstone of the Spurs Sports & Entertainment stable, its other teams playing at the AT&T Center enjoyed superb playoff runs in 2012. The Rampage and Silver Stars, enjoying their 10th anniversaries, reached the conference semifinals in their respective leagues. The hockey team's showing was the best in its history, while the WNBA's Silver Stars, a former conference finalist, rode a 12-game winning streak into its semifinals showing. The teams also set club attendance marks.